Tag Archives: City of Clarence

I experienced the Berriedale Caravan Park, beautiful bays and water birds, the surprising memorial to dogs that were members of the defence forces in various international wars, sewage works and MONA at the end of the last stage of my walk along the Derwent River. But there is more to Berriedale.

1986 was the International Year of Peace and many Peace Gardens were created to celebrate the event. Others have been created since then for bringing communities together. Eve Masterman (1907-2014), a tireless worker for peace, social justice and the environment, was instrumental in the establishment of an International Peace Forest (Peace Park) at Berriedale in 1991. This Forest/Park does not appear on Google maps, is not listed as a park within the jurisdiction of the City of Glenorchy, and there are a number of online enquiries asking for the location. But I remember passing through a Peace Park on my walk – I just can’t remember where. I have scoured my handwritten notes (the precursors to the postings) and photographs and found them wanting. Does any reader know the location of the International Peace Forest (Peace Park) at Berriedale? Shouldn’t a Peace Park be considered significant and worthy of records, signage and directions?

Now, how about some older history?

The Scottish heritage of some residents of Tasmania’s City of Glenorchy may be represented in the name Berriedale. According to http://www.tasmaniatopten.com/lists/ancestries.php, “The third largest migrant group in Tasmania are the Scots. They were also numerous among the early settlers in the colony.” Firstly, it was interesting to learn that in Scotland; Glen Orchy is about 17 km long and follows the River Orchy through the Caledonian Forest. Secondly, there is a small village Berriedale located on the far north eastern coast of Scotland. I have looked at images of the Scottish countryside around Berriedale and they show no resemblance to Tasmania’s Berriedale. The Berriedale Inn was open for business near our Derwent River in 1834 and perhaps the name for the suburb derived from that. Alternatively, perhaps our suburb was named after someone with that surname rather than the town. The City of Clarence has a good website with historical information about its suburbs and so I wish that the City of Glenorchy offered something similar. I can’t believe I am the only one interested to understand the Hobart that I live in.

Yesterday, the temperature at my home was in the high 30 degrees but today the temperature was much more pleasant and only rose to a little over the mid 20s. In the spirit of getting back out into the environment and not worrying about heat exhaustion, this afternoon Je and I headed off to have a look at Clifton Beach. This is not a place easily accessible by public transport unless you have time to take a long walk of many kilometres from a distant bus stop. So this Beach was accessed today by starting with a private car trip.

Neither of us had visited Clifton Beach or the adjacent Clifton Beach Conservation Area nature reserve for many years yet it’s a stunningly beautiful location only 25km from the centre of Hobart. The sky was cloudless, and the onshore breeze kept us comfortably relaxed.

This beachside suburb to the north of the South Arm peninsula and therefore north of the mouth of the Derwent River on the eastern shore, is part of the City of Clarence in which I live, and part of the Greater Hobart Area.

Clifton Beach is a 2.1km long wide sandy beach backed by deep revegetated 20 metre high sandy dunes. The beach is bordered by 54m high Cape Deslacs in the east and 50m high rocky cliffs in the west that run south for 3.5 km rising to 100m high at Cape Contrariety. At the southern end of the beach, a Surf Club is central to the protection of swimmers. However out on the waves, and typically clad in black wet suits, were sun-bleached surfers. Have a look at http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Clifton-Beach which has a changing selection of photographs showcasing this amazing beach – plus you can check out the forecast if you want to go for a surf. One of the photos looks towards the southern end, another looks across Storm Bay to the Tasman Peninsula, and the other is a huge wave the like of which we did not see today.

The photo on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifton_Beach,_Tasmania shows the cliffs at the northern end marking Cape Deslacs. When we followed a track out from a carpark, we found ourselves about half way along the long beach so we turned north and walked to the cliffs in the photo, passing a few happy walkers and joggers. A multitude of empty shells and dying/dead jellyfish lined the high tide mark. Dominican and Silver Gulls hovered. The crumbly sandstone strata in the cliffs were majestic. The rocks at the water edge were covered in baby black mussels. Under the waves crashing onto the rocks were thick unforgiving ribbons of kelp – the sort that could strangle and drown you if you were foolish enough to swim here without care.

Our view across the white capped waters of Storm Bay included a glimpse of Bruny Island to the south west on our right, and the western side of the Tasman Peninsula on our left.

We paddled in the breaking waves of cold water then trailed wet trousers across the hot sand. We longed to swim, but this is a very dangerous beach for undertows, powerful currents/rips and back surges, and unexpected changing sand bottom levels. People have died here from time to time after being seduced by the jade coloured waters, the clarity and cleanness of the water, and the seeming safety of it all. But the message ‘to swim between the flags’ indicating you should not swim unless there are life guards present and when they have put up flags indicating the safest stretch to swim between, needs to be adhered to at Clifton Beach. Today Je and I could see some of the turmoil beneath the waves, and the contrary action of waters moving in and out seemingly simultaneously. The clear glassiness of the water was so very enticing and, when licking my lips I tasted salt, I had a difficult time resisting going into the water. But the sand was soft and warm so a great lingering stroll was the wonderful substitute.

This blog records my walk along the Derwent River, as my own special project. On my second walk, I met a woman who with a group of friends had started the project of walking every beach in the City of Clarence local government area – all 94 kilometres. When I met her, already 87 kilometres had been covered.

Today in the The Age newspaper journalist Lawrence Money introduced the story of “One woman’s epic bike trek to Timbuktu and beyond”. Kate Leeming, a Melbourne woman cycled on her own, from the west coast to the east coast of Africa over 10 months. In addition, I learnt previously she had cycled across Russia alone, and currently is planning to ride a ‘polar cycle’ across the Antarctic.

Kate’s cycling treks are really enormous personal projects, the like of which I could never consider. Nevertheless, it confirms me in the belief that we can all find our own projects, small or large, long or short and keep actively discovering the limits of ourselves and our environment, whether near or far from where we live.

My walk today (my fourth walk) along the Derwent River must pass through Howrah, an eastern shore suburb adjacent to Tranmere in the City of Clarence (part of the Greater Hobart Area).

The Clarence City Council records that Howrah was named after Howrah House (or Howrah Farm, an alternative source suggests), a property established in the 1830s on Clarence Plains by a retired Indian Army officer Captain James Fielder. According to the Asiatic Journal of the times, when Fielder was a branch pilot in Calcutta (which in our recent times has been renamed Kolkata), his wife had a son in Kolkata on 3 March 1830 so travel to Tasmania occurred sometime after that. On 25 March 1835, ‘the lady of Captain James Fielder’ gave birth to a daughter at Clarence Plains. Fielder arrived in Hobart at least a year earlier if the information in http://vdlworldimmigrants.wordpress.com/stories-of-immigrants-pre-1900 is correct. “A newspaper notice by James Fielder of Howrah Farm, Clarence Plains, dated 17 November 1834 reads: Run Away On Friday the 14th instant, my apprentice boy, named Charles Connor, a native of India, between 16 and 17 years of age. I therefore warn all persons against harbouring him. He has on a narrow blue striped shirt, under a blue baize shirt, duck trowsers, lace shoes, and a tarpaulin hat. A reward of ten shillings will be given by the Undersigned to any constable who may take him up.”

Captain James Fielder took the name Howrah from a place of the same name near Kolkata. Clarence Plains is now known as Rokeby, a suburb I passed through on route to my first two walking stages on the South Arm peninsula. Rokeby is located over the hill from Howrah.

I found another historical connection when I recalled that Lieutenant John Hayes, who named our Derwent River, sailed from Kolkata in 1793.

With a little online research, I found that Howrah is the twin city to Kolkata in the state of Bengal in India, separated only by the Hoogly River. Back when Hayes was in the India, Kolkata was the capital of India during the British Raj so I imagine a bustling, active and expanding city.

On 11 October 1760, the Indian Howrah district came under control of the East India Company (EIC) – a massive trading company with ships travelling the world. In 1823, when Bishop Reginald Heber described Howrah as the place “chiefly inhabited by shipbuilders”, it confirmed that location as a significant base for the 27 year old Hayes before he took leave of the EIC, acquired a couple of merchant sponsors who built him two ships, and sailed to Tasmania. In addition to the shipbuilding industry, I have been pleased to learn that the British created a balance in the landscape by establishing the Indian Botanical Gardens in 1786. Perhaps Hayes experienced this maturing garden before he left in 1793. When he sailed into the Derwent River the Rokeby Hills would have been heavily forested (not cleared or edged with suburbs as they are today) and might have seemed similar to a botanical garden – a place with unusual vegetation.

Is there any chance Lieutenant John Hayes looked at our trees and remembered the Indian Botanical Garden?

Dan Sprod’s information for the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies was a great help in understanding that our Derwent’s (http://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/R/River%20Derwent.htm) European discovery was made during the second (1793) visit to what is now the island of Tasmania, by French explorer Bruny d’Entrecasteaux. The given French name ‘Rivière du Nord’ never took hold. When Englishman Lieutenant John Hayes arrived in April 1793, he was unaware of d’Entrecasteaux’s visit two months earlier, and named the river after the Derwent River in England.

Great Britain’s Derwent River flows through Cumbria, a sparsely populated non-metropolitan county in the north west of England.

Cumbria contains the famously beautiful Lakes District, and presents as a combination of mountains, rugged seashore, parkland and rural landscape. In the early eighteenth century, the landscape and climate similarities between Cumbria and our island’s river backed by the stunning Mount Wellington make it easy to understand how our river came to be named. In England, the name Derwent is derived from a Celtic word for “oak trees”. Australia and Tasmania do not have native trees with the same leaf and character as English Oaks. However the heavy thick forests with large stands of trees either side of Tasmania’s Derwent River, would have made a strong impression on Lieutenant Hayes.

The Cumbrian Derwent flows westwards towards the Irish Sea; the city of Workington sits at the mouth. Google Earth includes photos of a mountain, powdered with snow, showing similarities with our Mount Wellington at cooler times. I imagine Lieutenant Hayes would have been away from England for many months, if not years, and so his ability to make direct comparisons between his English and our river would be based on hazy memories. Notwithstanding this, when I look at a current photo of the Derwent in Cumbria, the landscape has a character similar to our local environment. Of course, the landscape and its features at both locations will not be the same as when seen in the late 1700s. However and despite the passing of centuries, I can see how and why Lieutenant Hayes chose to name our river, the Derwent.

But what about the man; what was Lieutenant Hayes connection with Cumbria and the Derwent River?

The Australian Dictionary of Biography (MUP Volume 1 1996) notes that Sir John Hayes (1768-1831), naval officer and explorer, was baptized on 11 February 1768, the son of Fletcher Hayes of Tallentire on the River Derwent, England. On 7 December 1781, when 13, he joined the Bombay Marine as a midshipman on the Bombay. By December 1788 he was promoted to second lieutenant and his rise through the ranks continued over the years. Hayes is best remembered for a private voyage undertaken between February 1792 and December 1794. Glowing accounts of New Guinea’s economic potential fired Hayes to lead an expedition financed by some Calcutta merchants. On 6 February 1793 the Duke of Clarence (250 tons) and the Duchess of Bengal (100 tons) left Calcutta, India. Because of adverse winds Hayes could not sail direct to New Guinea, so at the young age of 27 years, he decided to voyage round New Holland (this was the original European name for Australia). He reached Van Diemen’s Land on 24 April and left on 9 June. During that time, he discovered and named the Derwent River, and other features of the terrain. Risdon Cove and Cornelian Basin still bear the names he gave them. According to the publication “British Heritage of Tasmania’, (http://members.iinet.net.au/~rwatson1/britishheritage/BRITISH%20HERITAGE%20OF%20TASMANIA.pdf

Hayes named Ralphs’ Bay (a beautiful bay which I have mentioned during both my first and second stage of walking along the eastern shore of Tasmania’s Derwent River) at Lauderdale, after William Ralph who was in charge of the Duchess of Bengal.

While I would like to think that the City of Clarence (the eastern shore city of the Greater Hobart Area and the one in which I live) must have been named specifically after the ship which Hayes’ commanded, this apparently isn’t true. It seems that the City of Clarence was named after King William IV of the United Kingdom who as he ascended the throne was titled His Royal Highness, The Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. However, let’s look at this a little more closely. In 1843, Prince William (the future King William IV crowned in 1830) began a career in the Royal Navy by becoming a midshipman at 13 years. In 1789 he was made Duke of Clarence, and then retired from the Navy in 1790. The elements are: the future king is a naval man who held the title of Duke of Clarence before Lieutenant John Hayes (who started his naval career as a midshipman) set out from India towards Australia. Travelling to Tasmania, Hayes just happens to be in command of a ship named the Duke of Clarence in 1793. How did his ship get the name? Considering the timing, surely Hayes ship was named in honour of the new Duke of Clarence (the Sailor King or Silly Willy as the future king was known). I would prefer to believe that the name of today’s City of Clarence lying along the eastern edges of the Derwent River, is a reference to the ship of the man who named our River, and only indirectly refers back to the early title of King William IV.